


Let's break the rules

by Bookworms75



Series: What are we breaking? [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Supernatural
Genre: Absent John Winchester, Adoption, Blood Loss, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Family, Family Feels, Family Issues, Family Loss, Father's Day, Friendship, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Loss, Loss of Control, Loss of Parent(s), Malnutrition, Monsters, Mother's Day, NO ROMANCE BETWEEN SAM & DEAN & PERCY, Nightmares, Serious Injuries, Supernatural (season 1), The Impala (Supernatural), They're only brothers and I don't like incest, briefly mentioned/implied self-harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookworms75/pseuds/Bookworms75
Summary: Sam and Dean, who fought for each other after years apart, and Percy, a tiny hero who's been running ever since he learnt who he was.They should have never met or even tolerated each other, but they defied expectations and became family against the rules.The fate of the universe didn't come out unscathed when two worlds that had been kept apart since the dawn of time collided
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Percy Jackson, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Percy & Sam & Dean, Sam Winchester & Percy Jackson
Series: What are we breaking? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681378
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Let's break the rules

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: none of the characters nor the plot of Supernatural or Percy Jackson belong to me.
> 
> However, if you’re going to read this, you should be aware that there will be spoilers of both stories from their very beginning. I hope you enjoy it!

Percy Jackson was startled awake by the shouts outside his room.

‘Stupid Smelly Gabe,’ he thought furiously, throwing his covers off to jump out of bed.

His step-father was raising hell for his mom and thought that he could get away with it?

‘Yeah, not gonna happen,’ the child inwardly snorted. He was going to teach that jerk how wrong he was. If Gabe Ugliano wanted to play meanie with someone smaller than him, Percy was game, but his mom was off-limits. The six-year-old didn’t care how hard of a beating he got for trying to protect her.

However, before he could get out of his room, he heard the front door close with a loud bang. His bedroom’s door suddenly opened and his mom entered and quickly shut it behind her. She leant on it tiredly as Percy watched her worriedly. He could see that she was on the verge of tears and if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a gash on her temple, just below her hairline, and a bruise was becoming visible on her cheek.

Percy’s vision turned red, his blood boiling with fury. He heard a wave roaring in his ears.

How dare he?! Who did that guy think he was to hit his mom, the best thing Percy had in his life?! It was one thing for the man to hit him, he was used to it and he healed quickly. But his mom… his mom was too good for anyone to even think to lay a hand on her. Gabe was going to pay for touching her.

Sally Jackson raised a hand to her smarting cheek and winced. Oh, how she hated that man. She hated him more than she had ever hated anyone. She hated how he treated her and even more how he treated her son. She didn’t want that man anywhere near Percy. She wished she could retaliate and hit him with a frying pan, or grab Percy and run to the other side of the country where Gabe would never find them and they would be safe.

Unfortunately, being safe from Gabe Ugliano wouldn’t mean being safe from everyone and everything that posed a threat to her child. That disgusting and loathsome man was the only thing keeping Percy from being found by things that could do a lot more harm than Gabe could ever imagine. It was the only reason she had married him in the first place and the only reason she had been putting up with him for so many years.

Percy always came first. If a smarting cheek and a bloody temple was the price for his safety, she would pay it gladly.

However, something was wrong. Something was very wrong. She had a bad feeling, like someone had just walked over her grave, which was a saying she had never understood until that moment. It had never felt more real.

Something had changed and she didn’t know what. She knew that she had to tell Percy the whole truth about his father and his heritage, even though she had been protecting him from it for years. She had the feeling that she wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer, and she hated it even though there was nothing suggesting that it would be true. It was just a feeling in her gut.

Sally took a shaky breath and lifted her head, her tired blue eyes immediately finding angered green ones. Gods, her child looked so much like his father… She could feel the air becoming moist, like it had happened the few times she had seen his father that furious. She could hear the plumbing making some weird noises like the water in the pipes was rebelling against its containment. She needed to calm Percy down unless she wanted the same storm building up in her son’s eyes to appear outside in the middle of New York.

“Percy,” she called, walking closer and gathering her six-year-old child in her arms.

“I’m gonna kill him for doing this to you, mom,” Percy said, his voice sounding muffled by Sally’s shirt as he buried his face in her stomach.

The woman smiled faintly when she felt him relax against her, returning the hug as tightly as he could and burrowing into her embrace. Sadly, her gut was warning her that time was running out. She was on a countdown and she didn’t even know how long they had or what would happen when the last second expired. So, even though she didn’t know what they were up against or what was going to befall upon them, she needed to make sure that Percy was as ready as possible for it.

She pulled away and knelt in front of him, cupping his face in her hands. “Look at me, Percy. You’re not a killer. Never think that.”

“He hurt you,” the child protested half-heartedly.

“It doesn’t matter if he hurt me or not. It’d be so easy to retaliate against him, so easy to wish him to suffer as much as he’s made us suffer,” she said, remembering her earlier thoughts about grabbing a frying pan and cracking Gabe’s head open.

“Then why don’t you?” Percy argued. Why couldn’t they kick Gabe’s butt and make him pay for what he had done?

“Because I’m not a killer, just like you aren’t one either. It’d be easy to do him harm, but that doesn’t make it right,” she said softly, caressing his cheek with her thumb. “It’s easy to be blinded by hate and fear, it’d be so easy to let them tell us what to do, but you can’t let them make you do things you won’t be proud of later, when those feelings are gone.”

“You’re saying that we should just let it go?” Percy replied, angry and confused. He couldn’t let it go. “He _hurt_ you, mom,” he said, touching the bruise on her cheek with his fingertips.

Sally smiled sadly, grabbing his hand and pressing a kiss to those same tiny fingertips. “It’s nothing, baby. He’s just a little angrier than usual.”

“He shouldn’t hurt you. You deserve so much better than that jerk,” Percy insisted. He wanted to say that it would be better if Gabe just hurt him instead since he always healed a lot faster than his mom, but he didn’t want to imagine her reaction if he said that.

Her smile turned impossibly fonder. Gods, how could she love her son so much?

“I know you want to protect me, honey. Your father wanted to solve all of my problems too.”

“My dad?” Percy asked surprised.

“Yes, your dad.”

“Why didn’t he? If he could, why didn’t he help you?” He demanded angrily.

“For the same reason you can’t do it either. It’s my life and if it’s gonna mean something, there are some battles I have to fight on my own, even though it’d be so much easier to let him handle it. I got myself into this, knowing perfectly well what I was walking into, and it’s my job to deal with it,” she said firmly.

Percy could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “That’s not fair to you. I wanna help you.”

“I know, baby. You’ve always been a protector, trying to take care of everyone around you. You’re a hero, _my_ hero,” she said fervently.

Percy shook his head disbelievingly. If he were a hero, he would be able to protect his mom. Heroes didn’t allow their loved ones to get hurt. They protected them from all harm and made sure they were happy.

Sally smiled fondly, knowing what was going through her son’s mind. “You are,” she insisted softly. “Even if I’m the only one who can see it now, I know that you’re already a hero and one day you’ll be the greatest hero to have ever lived.”

“Mom…”

“I know it’ll happen. Don’t argue. It’s something that mothers know,” she said with finality. She smiled and brushed the hair out of his forehead. “Your father would be so proud of you if he could see you right now.”

“But he’s not. He left us with Smelly Gabe,” Percy spat bitterly.

“Not because he wanted to, honey,” she placated him. “He couldn’t stay, even though he would’ve wanted nothing more in the world. He wanted to stay so badly, Percy. He wanted us to be a family, the three of us together.”

“If he wanted it so much, _why_ did he leave?” Percy demanded desperately.

That was the crux of the question. This was what Sally had to explain to her son, shattering what remained of his childhood and innocence forever.

“Do you remember those stories I’ve told you, about the Greek gods and the demigods that went on quests?” She asked, hating herself for every word she uttered.

Percy frowned confused. “You always tell me about them before going to bed,” he nodded.

What did that have to do with his father leaving them with Smelly Gabe? Apart from the fact that those heroes from the stories would be able to kick Gabe’s butt and protect his mom without breaking a sweat.

Sometimes he wished he could be as strong and brave as them. He wished that, like they did in the stories, he could always find the strength to keep going no matter how difficult things might become and he could overcome whatever obstacle stood in his way, regardless of how big it was.

It was one of his deepest secrets and he was ashamed to admit, even to himself, but he was terrified of standing up to Gabe, even if he did it time and time again for his mom. Those heroes faced fire-breathing, man-eating monsters without a second thought, leaping into battle head-first without fear nor hesitation. But he would never be able to do that when Smelly Gabe terrified him. He tried to be brave and get rid of his fear, but he couldn’t help it because he knew that he would only receive pain every time he talked back or argued with him.

Sally smiled bitterly, knowing that her next words were going to damn her son for the rest of his life. She hated that she couldn’t protect her little boy any longer. If she was honest with herself, she had been struggling to be able to do that for a long time now and it killed her to see his eyes become more and more jaded with each day spent with that horrible man she had married. This wasn’t the life she wanted for her child. She wanted him to be happy and safe. It made her feel like the worst mother ever that she had no idea how to give him that, that she tried so hard and she still fell short.

“They aren’t stories, Percy. They’re real. The gods are real. Those demigods existed a long time ago and they did great and terrible things,” she finally said.

Percy frowned. “The gods are real?” He asked confused.

He couldn’t understand how it could be possible, but his six-year-old mind didn’t even consider the idea that his mom might be mistaken or lying to him. So, it had to be true. She was always right. She had proven Smelly Gabe that blue food existed. Even more, she had proven that it was the best ever. If she was right about the blue food, she had to be right about the gods.

“As real as you and me,” she nodded. Her smile turned a bit wistful. “Seven years ago, I met one of them at the beach of Montauk where we went to last summer. He was tall and handsome, and so powerful. But he was so kind and gentle too.”

It didn’t take anything else for Percy to connect the dots.

Despite what those infuriating teachers had told her about Percy before they had expelled him a couple of weeks prior, using the excuse that a weird man who had followed him around the playground could put the other children in danger, she knew he was clever and had a quick mind. It was their own fault if they didn’t know how to deal with a kid who had ADHD and dyslexia.

“My dad’s a god?!” He exclaimed wide-eyed. Had it been anyone else telling him this, he wouldn’t have believed them, but this was his mom. If she said that not only were the gods real but that one of them was his dad, then it was the truth.

She nodded. “You have his black hair and his green eyes. You’re just like him, honey,” she said, trying to get a grip on her own emotions. “I loved him so much, and he loved me too. He offered to stop the tide for me and build me a palace at the bottom of the sea, but I didn’t want that.”

“Why?” Percy scrunched up his nose. She would have been so much happier living with a god in a palace at the bottom of the ocean than in this disgusting apartment with Smelly Gabe.

“You know why. I have to live my life the way _I_ want it, making the decisions I want,” Sally told him. “Those few months were ones of the best of my life. We were so happy together. And then you came, and he had to go back to the sea after that.”

Percy blanched. “He left because of me?”

Was it his fault that his mom was stuck with Smelly Gabe instead of with a literal god, which was nothing less than what she deserved? Was it his fault that she had a bruise on her cheek and blood on her temple? Was it his fault that she spent her days working until she was ready to drop in exhaustion only to come home to an abusive jerk and a problematic child who had been expelled in first grade?

“Not because of you, baby. Never because of you,” she corrected him immediately. “Your arrival only made him want to stay even more. If we had been happy before, we were absolutely ecstatic when I got pregnant with you. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I bet that you’re also the best thing that has ever happened to your father. He loved you from the very first moment he knew that you existed.”

“But he left,” Percy argued weakly. How could you show someone that you loved them if you left them?

“Because he had no other option, sweetheart, but he didn’t want to leave. Gods can’t interact with their children much. There are rules that even they can’t break. Some of them stop the gods from living with their children, even though some hate it.”

“He’s never visited us. Not once,” the child insisted, tears welling up in his eyes. Everything was happening too fast. There was too much information to assimilate.

Sally’s heart broke for her little boy and she caressed his cheek again. “I know, honey. He couldn’t. But you’ll meet him one day. I promise. You may not be able to live with him like you live with me, but you’ll meet him, and you’ll see how much he loves you and how proud of you he is.”

Percy swallowed past the lump in his throat.

He wanted to hate his father. He really did.

The god wasn’t there when they needed him, when Gabe was drunk and he beat Percy to unconsciousness. He wasn’t been there to prevent that bruise from appearing on his mom’s cheek. He wasn’t there when Percy was so hungry his stomach hurt because Gabe had spent all their money on beer and poker and they didn’t have enough to buy some food. He wasn’t there to carry his mom to bed when she passed out on the couch and Percy could only cover her with a blanket because he was too little to do much else.

He really wanted to hate his father.

But he couldn’t.

No matter what happened, it was his dad. When he thought about his dad, he remembered a warm glow, a kind smile, a hand on his forehead. He remembered feeling as safe as he felt when he was hugging his mom. He could never hate someone who could make him feel like that, even if it was just a faint memory. He didn’t even know if it was real, but he wanted to believe that it was. He wanted to believe that his father had broken the rules his mom had told him about just to see him one time.

“Who’s my dad?” He asked in a murmur.

She stared at him knowingly. “You already know who he is, honey. Deep down, you know.”

Percy thought about what his mom had said about his dad stopping the tide and building her a palace at the bottom of the ocean. He thought about how much he loved the beach and how he had always thought that he was imagining things when the waves seemed to come towards him. He thought about how the water had always helped him with his injuries when he had washed them, when he had thought that they were too much to hide from his mom and they had then turned out not to be so bad.

It could only mean one thing. His dad could only be one god.

“Poseidon,” he whispered.

“Yes, he’s your father,” she nodded. “Just be careful with the names you use from now on. Names

have power and attract attention.”

“Attention? Whose attention?” He asked confused.

“Your dad isn’t the only deity out there, and just like in the stories I told you, there are monsters too. All of them have names and they’ll be able to find you,” Sally explained, knowing that now that he knew who he was, it would be all that much easier for the monsters to find him.

“Monsters?” Percy repeated scared. The demigods fought the monsters in the stories. If his dad was a god, that meant that he was a demigod too. Was he expected to fight monsters too? How was he supposed to do that when he was scared of Smelly Gabe?

Something broke inside Sally’s chest when she saw the fear in Percy’s eyes. She had put that there because she hadn’t been strong enough to protect him.

“I know it’s scary, baby,” she soothed him. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out something that she had been carrying with her for years. “But this will help. Your dad gave it to me the last day I saw him and told me that you’d need it one day. I think it’s time for you to have it.”

She pressed a bronze pen that looked like it couldn’t cost more than thirty cents into his hands and closed his fingers around it. She hated herself with every fiber of her being for doing this, for forcing her child to protect himself from now on. However, the feeling that it was going to be necessary was only getting more urgent rather abating.

Percy stared at it in confusion. “Mom, why would I need a pen?” He asked. He was always losing everything, from his color crayons to his hat and, on one memorable occasion, his left sock while he was still wearing shoes.

“Uncap it. Carefully,” she warned him as an explanation.

And what an explanation it was.

Percy stared flabbergasted at the three-foot long, bronze sword that rested in his hand a moment later. It was literally glowing slightly in the darkish room and it was almost humming softly with power.

“You’re gonna need it. The monsters are dangerous, but they don’t like celestial bronze, which is what this sword is made of,” she said, trying to give him a weak smile.

Gods, she hated this. Everything in her rebelled against the idea of giving her son, her little boy, a weapon as dangerous as that. She didn’t want him to have to fight. She wanted him to be a kid and enjoy his childhood for as long as he could. If it were up to her, she would grab him and hide him from the world and all the horrors that she knew were going to come after him.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t up to her. As much as she hated the idea of her son fighting and being hurt, if she had to choose between him losing his childhood or his life, she would always choose the first option.

Before Percy could say something about having received that sword, the front door opened and closed with a bang. Gabe’s heavy steps stomped towards the kitchen before coming directly to Percy’s door.

“Get out of there, you worthless whore!” Gabe screamed, banging on the door with his fist and making it tremble under the assault. “I warned you that I wanted the food ready when I came back!”

Sally paled and looked back before she returned her attention to her son. She couldn’t suppress the smile at his protective expression. Yes, he was exactly like his father, always ready to stand up for her and solve her problems, even though she was the adult here.

“You can’t use it against Gabe, Percy,” she said softly, squeezing his hand when she saw him tighten the other one around the hilt of the sword.

“Why not? He hit you,” he spat, glaring hatefully at the door where that man was still calling for Sally, like _his mom_ was at his beck and call, like she didn’t deserve the entire world and more. He pushed down his own fear and concentrated on the need to protect his mom.

“You’re not a murderer, remember? You protect people, Percy, which is the only thing that sword should be used for, either to protect yourself or others. It should never be wielded with the intention of harming anyone,” she said, forcing him to look at her in the eye until he relaxed. “Not that it’d work against him. Celestial bronze only hurts monsters and those with godly blood. Gabe’s just a mortal, a horrible one.”

“Sally!” Gabe yelled again. Finally, the door opened with a bang and, in the blink of an eye, Gabe was dragging Sally away by the hair. “You bitch, how dare you keep a door closed on my face when I’m calling you instead of answering immediately?! You’re gonna pay for that!”

He backhanded her with so much force that Sally was thrown to the ground, where she lay dazed.

Percy dropped the sword without thinking. If it wasn’t going to help him protect his mom, it was currently useless to him. So, he quickly stepped in front of her defenseless but glaring at Gabe defiantly. Today was going to be a bad day. He wasn’t even that close to the man and he could still smell the alcohol in his breath and all around him. Gabe was bad on a good day, but he was Percy’s worst nightmare, literally, when he was drunk, which, unfortunately, happened much more often than he would have liked.

“Don’t touch her!” He yelled in spite of his fear. He clenched his fists to hide their shakiness. He may be terrified of his step-father, but he wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction of seeing it.

He would have liked to be taller and stronger and fearless like the heroes from the stories so he could punch Gabe for having hit his mom. Instead, he wouldn’t be able to reach his face unless he jumped very, _very_ high. He could only stand in front of his mom and hope that would be enough to shield her.

“How dare you speak to me like that, you little piece of shit?!” Gabe punched him.

While Percy sidestepped to avoid the hit, he couldn’t completely dodge it and it clipped him on his temple. He went flying and his head hit the wall. His vision whitened for a moment as his world exploded in pain, but it only lasted a few seconds.

He was vaguely aware of his mom shouting something and a small part of his mind remembered that she had never seen Gabe hit him before, but it sounded like it was coming from very far away. It was all gibberish and fuzzy, an annoying ringing in his ears preventing him from understanding her words. He looked up and saw that she had somehow managed to get to her feet and she was glaring at Gabe furiously, angrier than Percy had ever seen her.

He saw Gabe prepare to throw another punch and he tried to stop him, to step between them, to protect his mom. Better him than her.

He wasn’t fast enough.

Horrified, he saw his mom’s head snap back because of the strength behind the punch and then hit the corner of the table as she fell down. The bang her head made against the table managed to pierce through the ringing in his ears and he knew he was never going to forget it.

He was at her side in a flash, his own pain forgotten. “Mom! You okay? Mom!”

There was no answer.

She always answered when he called for her? Why wasn’t she answering now?

“Mom, please!” He begged, shaking her while tears rolled down his cheeks.

He didn’t understand what he was seeing. Why did his mom’s eyes look like that? She was scaring him. She was staring at him, but she wasn’t staring _at him_ , more like _through him_. The spark she always had in her eyes was gone. There was... nothing in them.

But it didn’t matter.

She was going to blink in a minute and her eyes were going to go back to normal. She was going to smile. She was going to tell him that she was fine even though he wasn’t going to believe her because there was blood on the floor under her head and on his hands, and it was so, so scary. He was going to help her clean the blood with water and it was going to help her like it always helped him. It had to, because she had said that Poseidon loved her and he hadn’t wanted to leave them.

Except that she wasn’t doing that. She wasn’t blinking and she wasn’t smiling.

A minute passed. Then two. Three.

She wasn’t moving. Percy begged and cried and she didn’t move.

“Mom!” He screamed one last time, expressing all that he was feeling when the truth couldn’t be avoided any longer.

He didn’t even notice the pipes exploding, nor the earthquake that shook New York, nor the storm that was suddenly brewing outside, making his fury and terror and pain rain all over the city. He may not have cared even if he had noticed.

He hugged her tightly, sobbing his heart out. He didn’t care that Gabe had fled at some point. He didn’t care about anything. His world had shattered in a million pieces the moment his mom’s head had hit the table. He just wanted her to go back to normal. He wanted his mom to caress his cheek, give him a blue chocolate chip cookie and tell him that everything would be alright.

A sudden knock on the front door managed to pierce through his mangled thoughts and his head snapped upwards. He pulled his mom closer to him, not willing to let anything else hurt her. He was going to protect her even though he had already failed.

“Police! Open the door!” A strong male voice said from outside.

Crap, the police.

Panic overwhelmed Percy. What was he supposed to do now? They would take him away and call CPS. They would tell him that they would find him another family, that someone may adopt him and that he wouldn’t be alone.

That was all bullshit.

His mom had always been the only person there for him. He never had real friends in school, more like acquaintances at best and it had been weeks since he had seen them, and the teachers always hated him. It had been that way since the first day of class and for the five months he had attended that blasted school. He knew it would have happened again in the new school his mom had enrolled him in for the following school year.

Why would adults have changed their opinion of him just because he was a few months older and he was in a new building? No matter where he was, they would always continue to lab him as a troublemaker and a problematic child. Any parents that even considered adopting him would think the same and he refused to risk ending up with someone remotely similar to Gabe.

Besides, his mom had told him that monsters would come to find him now. He didn’t know exactly what that entailed or how many monsters she was talking about, but the stories she had told him before bed didn’t bode well for him. He couldn’t risk putting people in danger just because he was selfish. He was never going to allow someone else to die because of him.

All these thoughts passed through Percy’s mind in a couple of seconds. He was brought back to the present by a series of harsher knocks on the door.

“Police! Open the door!” Another voice repeated, sounding angrier.

Right then, Percy knew what he had to do.

He gently laid his mom back on the floor and tried to avoid looking into her creepy eyes. He didn’t want to remember them like that. He wanted to remember them when they twinkled with happiness and changed to match the color of the sea when they were in Montauk.

He shakily kissed her cheek, hating how cold it was. He swallowed a sob. It hurt so much to know it would be the last time he would be able to give a kiss to his mom because she was... She was...

No, he couldn’t even think that word. He couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he was far away.

He ran to his room, to the fire escape he could get to from his window. He paused when he had one leg out and he took one last look behind, finding it hard to breathe. This was the only home he had ever known, even with a monster living with them, and he had to leave it all behind. The streets were his only option now.

The sound of the front door being kicked open spurred him into action and he quickly climbed down the fire escape without being seen. He ran away without looking back, he ran as if he could outrun his memories, as if he could flee from this nightmare.

He couldn’t even see where he was going with his vision blurred with tears as it was, but he didn’t stop. He _couldn’t_ stop.

He had to get away.

He had to run as far away as possible.

How could this have happened to his mom? She was the best person ever. She looked after him. She kissed him goodnight and tucked him in every night. She helped him with his homework every afternoon. She made him blue cookies for his birthday every year. She never got angry at him when he messed up in school, or when he didn’t get good grades like the other kids, not even when he had been expelled. She always smiled at him. She was so kind and sweet to everybody. She loved him more than anyone else. She was…

She had been his whole world.

A sob burst out of his lips and he pushed his legs to go faster. He had to get away.

He ran and ran for a long time, longer and faster than he had ever run before, until his legs couldn’t hold him up any longer. He collapsed next to a tree when he reached the outskirts of New York, trembling violently from shock and exhaustion. He curled into himself and let out a heartbreaking sob. He didn’t notice the storm raging all over New York that was his own doing, caused by his grief.

The entire situation was beginning to sink in and he felt so... lost. What was he supposed to do now?

He missed his mom already. He had nowhere to go. He had found out that he was going to be tracked down by monsters that he had no idea how to fight because his dad was the Greek god of the sea.

His situation sucked.

However, his mom had always told him that everything could be seen more clearly in the morning after sleeping for a bit, and she was always right. Maybe he should follow her advice. Things had never gone wrong for him when he did. He let the darkness consume him, but he didn’t have a peaceful sleep.

He was plagued by nightmares about what had happened to his mom, about what was going to happen to him in the future, about the monsters that he now knew were real.

_‘Percy,’_ a voice interrupted his nightmares about his mom’s creepy unseeing eyes.

All he could see was darkness.

_‘Percy, son.’_

“Dad?” He asked tentatively.

Could it be? Could his dad be talking with him for the first time in his life? Or had he gone crazy after all?

_‘Hello, son.’_

“Dad, where are you?” He asked desperately, but still he could see nothing. He wanted to meet him. He wanted his dad to hug him, let him cry until he had no more tears left and promise him that he was safe.

His father didn’t do any of that.

_‘Not far away. I’m never far away from you, but I can’t visit you yet.’_

“Why?” Percy cried. He needed to see him. Was it too much to ask to see his dad when he had just lost his mom? His dad was all he had left. Percy didn’t have anyone else, but he couldn’t see his dad.

_‘I wish I could, but it’s too dangerous for you, son. Powerful people would find out about you. They’d try to kill you and I’d be powerless to defend you.’_

Yeah, his mom had said something along those lines too. It felt like he was stabbed in the chest when he thought about his mom again.

“Dad, m-mom…” He tried to explain, but the words wouldn’t come. He was crying too hard even in his stupid mind.

_‘I know, Percy,’_ Poseidon said, sounding sadder than ever. He sounded like he was already mourning her. It was that, more than anything else, what convinced Percy that he had really loved his mom. _‘I wish I had known what was going to happen. I would’ve saved her. I found out what happened when I felt the earthquake and the storm in New York.’_

“Earthquake? Storm?” Percy repeated startled.

_‘You’re powerful, Percy. Never doubt that. You’re the son of the sea god and you have the power of the ocean running through your veins.’_

“Dad, p-please. I d-don’t know…” He begged. He was just six years old. He didn’t want to be powerful. He wanted his mom to hold him. He wanted his dad to tell him he would protect and take care of him. He didn’t want to be alone and live on his own with nothing but a bronze pen and the clothes he was wearing.

Wait, no, just the clothes he was wearing. He had dropped the sword in his bedroom and he hadn’t picked it up again. The realization that he had lost the last thing his mom had given him sent him into hysterics.

_‘You haven’t lost it. You’ll never lose it, son. What’s part of the sea always goes back to the sea. Just as your sword will always come back to you.’_

Those words calmed Percy down a little bit, but he was still crying heavily. Too much had happened in such a short time. He had a weapon, but he didn’t know how to use it against the monsters that were going to come after him.

_‘Just trust your instincts, son. They won’t fail you.’_

“I’m afraid, d-dad,” he confessed, trying miserably to calm down. “I d-don’t know if I can do this.”

The world had never seemed bigger than it seemed right then. Or maybe he had never felt smaller. How could his mom have thought that he was a protector, a hero, when he didn’t even know how to take care of himself?

_‘I know you are, son, but I also know you can do it. Your mom already told you, you’re a hero. You’re so brave. So, so brave. You’ll be the greatest hero to ever live one day. I know you will be.’_

Percy’s breath hitched slightly, trying to keep a sob from coming out. He didn’t want to be a hero. He didn’t want to be a protector. He didn’t want to be brave. He wanted someone to protect him and tell him he had nothing to worry about except grieving for his mom. He wanted to scream that he couldn’t do this by himself.

_‘I have to go now, Percy. You’re about to wake up.’_

“No! Dad, p-please! Don’t leave me now!” Percy pleaded, panicked. He had lost his mom and he had just talked to his dad for the first time ever. He couldn’t lose him already.

_‘I may not be able to visit you, but I’ll always watch out for you, Percy. You won’t be alone.’_

Percy lost the battle and a sob teared out from his throat.

Why couldn’t his dad understand that having someone watching over him wouldn’t help him as much as he wanted to? It wouldn’t give him someone who could teach him how to fight monsters. It wouldn’t tell him how he was going to manage to feed himself or keep himself warm from now on (he hadn’t even taken his coat when he had run away, for gods’ sake!). It wouldn’t help him deal with the loss of his mom. It wouldn’t give him someone he could talk to so he wouldn’t go crazy.

It wouldn’t solve his problems.

But, hey, it was a nice sentiment.

_‘Don’t worry. Things will get better one day. I promise.’_

“Okay…” Percy nodded shakily, trying to regain his composure. For some reason, he didn’t doubt his dad for a second. Maybe because the other option was so much worse. He had to believe that things would get better one day, even if he didn’t see how that could be.

_‘I love you, son.’_

That was the last thing Percy heard before he felt himself waking up. He opened his eyes and blinked warily. It was early in the morning and he rationally knew that nothing had really changed from the night before, but his mom was right, like always. Things were seen more clearly after sleeping.

“I love you too, dad,” he whispered softly.

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the bronze pen he had been so afraid of having lost. With a lump in his throat, he uncapped it and examined it carefully. It had an inscription he hadn’t noticed before on one side of the blade.

Άνακλυσμός.

Anaklusmos.

‘Riptide,’ his mind automatically translated to English.

His thoughts immediately flashed back to his mom’s words one afternoon in Montauk.

_‘Be careful, Percy. Riptide’s the current you’ll never see coming. It takes one by surprise and before you know it, you’ve been swept out to the sea.’_

His eyes watered. His mom had always looked after him and, even now when she wasn’t there anymore to protect him, she had given him the means to protect himself.

Acting on instinct, he touched the pen cap to the sword tip and the next instant he was holding a ballpoint pen in his hand again. The only sign that it was anything more than a pen was the same inscription on its side that had been on the flat side of the blade.

Άνακλυσμός.

Taking a deep breath as he put the pen back in his pocket, he began walking further away from New York. He didn’t have a destination in mind, but that was so far down in his list of worries that he barely spared it a thought. Since he had nowhere to go, he could go anywhere he wanted. He could decide on the way.

He missed his mom like crazy. He knew that he was going to have nightmares for a long time, that the following weeks (Hades, the following months and years!) weren’t going to be easy, that things had changed for the worst forever. However, he was ready to face it with a newfound determination. Life may hurt him and hit him with everything it had, but he wasn’t going to bow down without a fight.

His mom wouldn’t have wanted him to.

*** LBR ***

Percy Jackson had no way of knowing it, but his family wasn’t the only one that was broken that night. On the other side of the country, miles away from the demigod, another small family that had already lost too much was going to receive another blow.

*** LBR ***

Sam Winchester was a nervous wreck.

He knew it.

His big brother Dean knew it.

Sam knew that Dean knew it, but the older boy didn’t know the reason. Dean knew nothing about the letter tucked in the front pocket of his backpack, the letter he had been carrying around for a week now as he tried to gather the courage to tell their father about it.

He had made a decision, though.

He was going to tell his dad that very same night about it. John Winchester had gone out to get some dinner for the three of them while Dean and Sam grabbed a room in the motel for the night. But as soon as he came back, Sam was going to tell him. It was the first thing he was going to do.

He was afraid of his dad’s reaction. He knew that John wasn’t going to be happy. Heck, he was going to be furious and they were going to have an epic fight, possibly the worst one they had had as of yet (and they had had some pretty bad ones). However, there was a small part of him that hoped that maybe his dad could be happy for him for once. Maybe, even if he wasn’t happy, he would tell him that he was proud of him. That was what most parents would be in his place, but Sam had always known that his family wasn’t conventional by any means.

“Sammy, you alright, dude?” Dean asked. The twenty-three-year-old had come out of the bathroom to find Sam sitting on his bed, the furthest one from the door, as he played with a folded piece of paper. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Sam replied, not looking at his brother.

If he was honest with himself, he was more scared about his brother’s reaction than his dad’s. Dean’s opinion had always been more important to him than his dad’s. If there was anyone who could make him change his mind about this, it would be Dean and he really didn’t want to change his mind.

Dean sent him an odd look. He had noticed that Sam had been distant for the past week. He could hear him turning and tossing in bed for hours at night until he finally settled down and his breathing became even. He knew that Sam was hiding something and he had the feeling that it had to do with that piece of paper.

Years ago, his little brother wouldn’t have hesitated to come to him when he had a problem. Usually, he still didn’t. Sometimes, though, Sam refused to ask for help or whatever he needed. He thought that he was a burden, that Dean shouldn’t have to look after him and miss out on all the things normal teenagers had, that he was a big boy who could take care of his own problems now.

Sam didn’t understand that, regardless of how much he grew up and how capable he was, Dean was always going to be his big brother and he was always going to look out for him. He didn’t understand that, while Dean knew that he was missing out on a lot of things, he willingly gave it all up to look after his little brother. It was the way things were with him, but Sam didn’t seem to get it.

Not that Dean let that deter him. He was never going to stand aside when something was troubling his brother. If Sam didn’t want to tell him, he was going to find out himself.

Walking as silently as though he was in the middle of a hunt, Dean sneaked up behind Sam and snatched the paper out of his hands.

“Dean!” Sam yelled, jumping to his feet automatically. He lunged for his brother, but in spite of the growth spurt he had had the last couple of years, Dean still had a couple of inches on him and he was stronger. As desperate as he was to get the letter back, he wasn’t surprised when Dean managed to keep it away from him even as he unfolded the paper and began reading.

The older Winchester was reading quietly, his eyes flying over the paper as fast as he could. When he finally finished, he looked up at his brother, who had stopped trying to get the letter back and was staring at him defiantly. However, he could still see the nervousness in the way Sam stood with his back straight as a board or the way he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

He had a weird bubble of emotions in his chest.

He was so proud of his little brother.

He had always known that Sam was smart and hard-working, but this... Holy shit, this was big. He knew that it was his brother’s dream come true. He wanted to yell and cheer and hug his brother and congratulate him and tell everyone about what Sam had accomplished.

He was afraid, though.

He knew this meant that Sam was leaving.

If they were a normal family, there would be hugs and goodbyes when Sam left and they would be looking forward to see him at Christmas and summer and any other holiday and whenever they would swing by just to pay him a visit. Even if they hadn’t been a normal family, this could have been possible. There was no reason to think that Sam couldn’t help them with research from miles away while they hunted and that he couldn’t join them during breaks.

However, they weren’t a normal family. And worse, their dad wasn’t a man who listened to reason.

Dean could understand now why Sam was nervous and withdrawn. He was scared of their dad’s reaction and, honestly, so was he. He had always hated when Sam and their dad argued and they had been butting heads more and more the last few years. He knew that this was going to be the mother of all fights and it filled him with dread.

“You got a full scholarship to Stanford?” Dean asked. He didn’t recognize his own voice. It didn’t sound proud or sad or angry or happy or scared. It sounded so dull to his own ears.

Sam hid a wince at Dean’s monotone voice. He was trying to gouge his reaction, but his brother’s face was blank. He had thought for a second that he saw pride there, but then he thought he saw fear and dread. And now he couldn’t see anything. He didn’t have time to ask either.

“He _what_?” A voice asked from the entrance. They whipped around startled, staring at their dad like deer caught in the headlights. They had been so caught up in their conversation that they hadn’t heard the door open.

Sam opened his mouth and closed it. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he was relieved that now he didn’t have to tell his dad himself or if he wanted to hit Dean for having (unintentionally) told the man like this. He could already see the anger bubbling in his dark eyes. He didn’t try to stop him when he stomped closer to Dean to grab the letter and read it himself. He watched in silence as his father read it, barely daring to take a breath.

John looked up and Sam felt his heart drop to his feet with the single word that crossed his lips. “No.”

It was like a switch had been flipped. All the dread inside Sam turned into anger so fast that it would have left him reeling hadn’t he been so furious.

“Why not?” He snapped.

“Because I say so,” his dad replied, sending him a warning glance. “You’re not going.”

“I _am_ going,” Sam said firmly. It was taking him a titanic effort not to begin yelling so early into the discussion.

“You’re not going,” he repeated, sounding harsher. “I’m your father and you obey when I give you an order. That’s how things work around here, you hear me?”

“I’m an adult now! How are you gonna stop me? Are you gonna tie to the Impala?”

“Maybe I will if you’re deluded enough to think you’re going!” John roared, finally losing his patience.

“I’m almost nineteen and I’ve got a full scholarship to Stanford! Why can’t you just congratulate me and support what I want to do?!”

“You don’t need to go to college! It won’t teach you anything about hunting!”

“I _want_ to go to college!” Sam yelled frustrated. “Maybe I wanna do something more with my life than hunt monsters forever!”

“You can’t leave the family business, Sam! You know why we’re doing this!”

“Yes! Because of your quest for revenge! _Your_ quest, not mine!” Sam shouted.

He knew that he was entering dangerous territory because any mention of Mary Winchester would cause his father to raise his defenses and become totally unreasonable, but he didn’t care. More like he couldn’t help it.

He was hurting and he wanted his dad to hurt in return. Why couldn’t his father be happy for him? Why couldn’t he let him have a normal life? Why did he insist on forcing them to live like this forever?

Dean winced when he heard those words coming out of his brother’s mouth. He knew there was no stopping the fight now until one of them gave in. He wanted to intervene and make them calm down so they could actually talk instead of yelling hurtful things at one another (and wouldn’t Sammy get a kick if he knew that Dean wanted a heart-to-heart for once?). He wanted to tell his dad that there was nothing wrong with Sam going to college. He wanted Sam to let it go just to stop the fighting.

He did nothing of the sort.

He was rooted on the spot. He hadn’t moved a muscle since his dad had taken the letter from his hands.

He had always hated taking sides when Sam and his dad fought and he avoided it as often as he could. Sometimes he would kick Sam under the table to get him to stop riling their father up. On a few rare occasions he would try to reason with his dad. Often, he would just help Sam himself or give him what he needed.

In this case, though, he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t keep both of them happy. What he wanted was to disappear and to have never read the letter, even though he knew that that wouldn’t have helped matters since Sam would have had to tell their dad sooner or later.

“Your mother died at the hands of one of these things!” John yelled lividly. “How can you want to walk away when you know it’s still out there?!”

“Do you really think that mom would have wanted this life for us?!” Sam snapped back. “Never staying in the same place for more than a couple of months at most?! Living in motels?! Never having enough money to buy what we need?! Putting our lives in danger every week, if not every night?! Never having enough time to study because we have to do research about the stupid creature we’re hunting?! Having seen the kind of things we’ve seen?! Teaching us how to shoot and fight and make bullets?! That’s what mom would’ve wanted for us?!”

“You man up and deal with it! We have to find what killed her!”

“Well, it’s been more than eighteen years and you have nothing! You don’t know what killed her, or where to find it, or how to kill it! I don’t wanna spend my life doing this!”

“Too bad, Sam! I’m your father and I decide what’s best for this family!”

“You don’t want what’s best for us! You just wanna keep us under control, but we’re not kids anymore! I’ll be nineteen in a bit more than two months! You can’t keep ordering me around!”

“So, you’d turn your back on your family?! After everything I’ve done for you two, you’d leave without a second thought?!”

“ _I_ would turn my back on my family?!” Sam roared incensed. He couldn’t believe the nerve of his father. “Who’s the one who leaves for days or weeks at a time without calling or sending a simple message?!”

“You know why I have to do it! You know that people’s lives are in danger!”

“You always said that family comes first, but you never act like it! We’re your sons and it’s like you don’t even care! It’s been a long time since you acted like a father! Dean’s been more of a parent to me than you and he’s my big brother! It shouldn’t have to be his job to earn money to buy food or clothes, or take care of me when I’m sick, or worry about paying for another week in the motel!”

“He’s a good son! He does what he has to do for this family without complaining, unlike you, you spoiled, selfish brat!”

Dean wasn’t sure how he had become part of the discussion, but he didn’t like it. He would much rather that they left him out of it.

“And you do what you have to?! Whenever you’re with us instead of God-knows-where and not answering your phone, you’re always drinking and drowning in self-pity!” Sam knew he had crossed a line there (not the first one that night), but he was so enraged. How dare his father tell him that he would turn his back on his family when he was the one who was missing half the time and drunk the other half?

“Enough, Sam!” John yelled, making a cutting motion with his hand. Like that would make Sam shut up. “I’m your father and you obey! You’re not going!”

“You can’t stop me!” Sam shouted. As if to prove his point, he grabbed his duffle bag, which he hadn’t even opened yet and he had thrown onto the bed haphazardly, and hung it over his shoulder.

“You walk out that door, don’t you ever come back!” John roared, eyes wild and enraged.

Sam stopped in his tracks for a second. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Was his dad actually kicking him out? Was he forcing him to choose between his family and his dream? How could he do that to his son?

He turned towards his brother, like he had done all his life every time he had felt scared or insecure about what to do.

He didn’t know what he expected to see.

Maybe Dean would be staring at their dad in anger, maybe he would even jump to his defense. Maybe he would be smiling at Sam proudly, letting him know that he would be there for him no matter what he chose. Maybe he would try to make their dad see reason. Maybe he would insist that they accompany Sam to Stanford and make sure he was installed and comfortable. Maybe (and Sam was scared of this possibility because he knew that he would give in in an instant) he would beg Sam not to go.

But Dean did none of the things from above.

He was stunned and scared. He was watching his family fall to pieces and he didn’t know how to fix it. Was it too much to ask to have his family staying together, to not hate each other?

Seeing as his brother was doing nothing, Sam could only come to one conclusion: Dean actually agreed with their father.

The realization hurt much more than he had expected. The betrayal felt like a knife being twisted into his heart. It shouldn’t have shocked him so much, though. He had always known that their dad was Dean’s hero, that Dean would never even think of disobeying their dad. He had always harbored the secret hope that Dean would side with him no matter what, but now he had the proof that it wasn’t true.

He couldn’t deal with this.

“This is it, then,” Sam said. Now he was the one who didn’t recognize his own voice. Despite the turmoil inside him, he sounded so calm about everything, like it wasn’t affecting him at all. Like having his family forcing him to leave them just because of his dream wasn’t hurting him at all.

He walked as fast as he could towards the door without running. He had to leave before he did something stupid, like hug Dean and beg him not to hate him for wanting to do this.

“Sammy, wait…!” Dean shouted when Sam opened the door, but the youngest Winchester didn’t turn around.

“Goodbye, Dean,” he said emotionlessly before stepping outside and closing the door behind him.

He didn’t look at his brother.

If he had, he would have seen the desperation and hurt in Dean’s face and he would have known that his brother didn’t hate him. If he had, Dean would have seen the tears in his little brother’s eyes and he would have followed him outside to see him begin to cry as he walked away.

But he didn’t look. And so, many things would remain hidden from them, many misunderstandings would rise walls between them.

Dean wouldn’t know that his little brother believed that he hated him. He wouldn’t know that Sam arrived at the nearest bus station with tears still falling from his eyes. He wouldn’t know that Sam would be missing him every day for the next almost four years just as much as he missed his little brother. He wouldn’t know that Sam would be waking up from nightmares screaming for him for years. He wouldn’t know that Sam would lose count of the amount of times he would almost call his big brother.

He wouldn’t know how close Sam had been to begging him to come with.

On the other hand, Sam wouldn’t know that Dean didn’t sleep that night either. He wouldn’t know that, every time Dean called him, it would just be to talk rather than to ask about a hunt or to ask him to come back. He wouldn’t know that the strange extension his scholarship would suddenly have to include his meals would be in fact Dean paying for it. He wouldn’t know that it wouldn’t be students hazing him who would paint his door and his walls in his dorm, but his brother using iron laced paint to protect him.

He wouldn’t know that Dean would have come with him if he had asked.

Sam didn’t look so neither of them knew. It would be almost four years before they would see each other again and even longer until all the misunderstandings were out in the open.

*** LBR ***

That night of mid-February was the night that two families broke and the pieces were scattered around the country for years.

One of the pieces would busy himself with studies and friends and a beautiful girlfriend and trying to pretend to be normal.

Another one of the pieces would bury himself into the hunting life, only taking breaks to spend the night with a pretty woman or to check on his brother from afar.

The last piece would be hiding and running for his life from both mortals and monsters, half-heartedly trying to stay alive as he learnt more about the world he had been thrust into.

For years, neither of these pieces talked to each other.

Then, more than three years later, almost four, things would change.

The first two pieces would meet again. The first piece would lose his girlfriend and his chance to have a normal life. The second piece would be left struggling to keep the first one living rather than just surviving, and hoping that his family would be reunited soon. And the third piece would bump into the first two on accident.

That meeting was what would change things.

Two worlds that should never meet would collide and things would never be the same afterwards.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, this is the first time I write a crossover, but I’ve had this story in my mind for a long time and I’ve been writing and rewriting several chapters for… months? More than a year already? Something like that.
> 
> The point is that I’ve put a lot of effort into this and I wanted to share it with other people. I’ve always thought that, if both Percy Jackson and Supernatural existed, Sam, Dean and Percy would have had to cross paths at one point or another. This is how I thought it could have happened.
> 
> Obviously, I’ve changed things, like Sally’s death and Percy running away to live in the streets, and I’m going to have to keep changing more things as the story progresses. However, I’m also going to stick to cannon very much, both in the Percy Jackson story and the Supernatural one. Just a warning, there WON’T be any type of romance between Sam and Percy, Dean and Percy or Sam and Dean. No way. I refuse.
> 
> That being said, I’d like to know what you think about this story. If people are interested in seeing where this is going, I’ll keep publishing more chapters. If they aren’t, no harm done. This will just become another story I keep writing for my own amusement and entertainment.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading all of this. I hope you liked it!


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